Ah, yeah. I don’t know the terminology. I’ll change it to threadbare My level of tech awareness is like… my friends think I know stuff but actually I’m just great at taking a punt and watching tutorials.

Anyway, yeah, I changed the old one to a nifty NVME and now it runs like a dream.

Currently I’m using Zorin OS Alite - do you really think I should go to mint or Ubuntu before I start settling in? My initial reaction to Zorin is that I’m satisfied with it, but if it’s not as reliable as mint then maybe I should just start again?

Yep, that’s what I did. Super fast now.

Ah, mines the one with the m.2 SSD slot (or something like that) - I replaced it with a nice fast one for £30 and it’s running like a dream. Much faster than it was before.

Crucial P3 500GB M.2 PCIe Gen3 NVMe Internal SSD - Up to 3500MB/s - CT500P3SSD8

You should be able to replace the HDD with one of the bigger SSD’s though? Isn’t the bracket for it built in?

But surely one for lower end/older machines will be as barebones as possible?

No gaming, hopefully. Perhaps hearthstone if I succumb to it.

Oh, true yeah. Oh well, too late now. I’ll keep it mind if I want to go back to windows.

Interesting. Going to mull over the options on my walk to the shops to get a USB. Thanks.

Perfect, I’ll take your word for it. Unless someone comes in here and convinces me otherwise.

Thanks!

Thanks for the high effort response. I’m over my main symptoms now. 1 more sleep and I’m probably back to total normal, I hope.

I’ll hop on that booster train when I get the chance.

I don’t see people on here saying Nazis are the reason it started so much. Most people’s take is that Russia is lashing out against encirclement by opposing powers, and also to annex parts of Ukraine that according to polls, don’t want to be part of Ukraine anymore.

Western funding of Nazis is just a tried and tested mechanism of levering power against a state.

It’s not the reason that Russia started their offensive, but it is a fact that the CIA funds right wing militants to fight on the behalf of the USA’s economic interests. They have done so time and time again throughout history, from Europe to Asia to Africa.

Now, as Ukraine rules with western support, they have outlawed left wing parties. This has rather predictably ended with higher rates of admiration of the Nazi Stepan Bandera, the repeal of labour laws, and the mass privatization of the country.

This is typical economic shock doctrine. If Ukraine wins, its people will be the new low wage manufacturers and workers for the world to use and discard for profits. If Russia wins, it’s also not great at this point - they’d likely be contending with western funded guerillas, and who knows if Russia would actually reinstate the repealed labour laws and left wing parties, given that Russia itself is a capitalist oligarchy.

Poll by Rating, a Ukrainian research institute, shows positive opinions of Stepan Bandera (Jew exterminating Nazi) soaring from 22 per cent in 2012 to 74 per cent in April 2022. (post maidan revolution in 2014)

Those opinions are stronger the further you get away from Russia. They are weaker in Crimea and Donbass.

The left wing parties in Ukraine have been banned.

Russia isn’t trying to absorb Ukraine. They would absolutely broker a deal to take back Crimea and Donbass and leave the rest. A significant number in those places are ethnically russian (it’s the largest ethnicity proportion in the area ~ 39%) and a higher proportion than just ethnic Russians are open to becoming part of Russia (~49%)

some sources:

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2023/01/ukraine-stepan-bandera-nationalist

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280134876_Terrorists_or_national_heroes_Politics_and_perceptions_of_the_OUN_and_the_UPA_in_Ukraine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/russia-ukraine-donbas-donetsk-luhansk-public-opinion/

I think we should start a campaign to identify all the Economist writers. I mean some proper linguistic identification (if it’s not just A.i generated) and file leaking to find these ghouls.

I can’t stand that they’re just an anonymous propaganda blob.

I agree. It’s too easy. Some of them are funny but for the most part I wish my front page would return to interesting news and left wing hot takes.